A Dixie Christmas (15 page)

Marion shook her head vigorously from side to side. “Clare wasn’t giving up on your father. She had every intention of returning home. If it hadn’t been for the fire
 . . .”
Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke. She swiped at them with a tissue and pointed to an envelope in the box of miscellany.

Clay picked it up and immediately noticed the airline logo on the outside of the envelope. Inside was a thirty-two-year-old, one-way ticket, Memphis to Newark. It was too much to digest at once. Clay stood abruptly and headed for the door.

“Mr. Jessup, where are you going? We have a meeting soon.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “I’m going for a walk. I need to think.”

“But what should I tell the lawyers?”

“Tell them
 . . .
tell them
 . . .
the deal is off
 . . .
for now.”

Like minds and all that…

It was Christmas Eve and Clay was driving a bright red Jeep Cherokee up the lane to Sweet Hollow Farm, more hopeful and frightened than he’d ever been in all his life.

Would he and Annie be able to work things out?

Would her brothers come out with shotguns in hand?

Would he fight to the death for her
 . . .
a virtual knight in shining Jeep?

Would Annie still love him in the end?

There was a full moon out tonight, but Clay didn’t need it, or the Jeep’s headlights, to see. The entire barn and farmhouse were outlined with Christmas tree lights. In the front yard was a plywood Santa and reindeer display, highlighted by floodlights. The whole scene resembled a farm version of Chevy Chase’s movie “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” He wondered idly who had climbed up on the roofs of the house and barn to put up all those blasted lights. Probably Annie. Or Aunt Liza. Damn!

Clay was so nervous he could barely think straight, especially when he saw the front door open, even before he emerged from the vehicle.

It was Annie.

Please, God
, he prayed,
no big toes this time.

“Clay?” Annie said, coming down the steps and walking woodenly toward him. She looked as if she’d been crying.

Who made her cry? I’ll kill the person who made her cry?

Oh! It was probably me.

“Where did you get the Jeep?” she asked nervously, as if that irrelevant detail was the most important thing on her mind.

“I
 . . .
uh
 . . .
kind of
 . . .
uh
 . . .
rented it.” Clay’s brain was stuck in first gear.

“You came back,” she said then, surrendering to a sob. “I called the hotel all night and Marion said you were gone, and I thought
 . . .
I thought you went home.”

“I am home, sweetheart.” Clay opened his arms to her and gathered her close. “I’ve done a lot of walking, and thinking, since you left me.”

“I’ve been so miserable,” she blubbered against his neck.

“Me, too, sweetheart. Me, too.” He was running his hands over her back, her arms, her hair, her back again. He kissed the top of her head, her wet cheeks, her lips. He tried to show her with soul-deep kisses how much he’d missed her, and how important she was to him. He couldn’t get enough of her. He was afraid to let go for fear this was all a dream.

Annie leaned back to get a better look at him. Cupping his face in her hands, she gazed at him, tears streaming down her cheeks, with such open love that Clay felt blessed.

“Annie-love, we’re going to work this out. I’ve talked with my legal department in New York, and they see no problem with my setting up a satellite office in Memphis. Could you live with me in New Jersey part of the time, if I’m willing to live here?”

Her mouth had dropped open with surprise. “You would do that for me?”

“In a heartbeat.”
It was either that, or suffer a heartbreak. Easy choice!

“How about the hotel?”

“Well, I’m not sure. I called a Memphis entrepreneur this morning. This guy has the capital to finance a purchase of the hotel property, and he has the Memphis ties that would make such a landmark attractive to him. But I don’t know if I’m ready to give up the hotel yet. Oh, Annie, I’ve learned some things this week about my mother and father that are going to take me a long time to accept.”

She pressed a light kiss to his lips in understanding. “We don’t have to decide all this right now.”

“
We?
” he asked hopefully.

“
We,
” she repeated.

“Will you marry me, Annie-love?”

“In a heartbeat,” she said, echoing Clay’s phrase.

A short time later, they were heading toward the front steps, arms wrapped around each other’s waists, their progress hampered by his limp and their constant stopping to kiss and murmur soft words of love.

Clay couldn’t stop grinning.

“You’re looking awfully self-satisfied, Mr. Jessup.”

“Well, I’m a negotiator, Annie. It’s part of my business as a venture capitalist. I figure I just pulled off the deal of the century. I got you, didn’t I, babe?”

She laughed. “You had me anyhow,
babe
. I already talked to my brothers about taking over the farm so I could move to New Jersey. Why do you think I was calling you all night?” She tapped him playfully on the chin in one-upmanship.

“Well, you little witch, you,” Clay said. But what he thought was,
Wait till you see what I bought at the mall. You haven’t had the last word yet.

He never knew there could be such joy in giving…

Elvis was singing “Blue Christmas” on the stereo, a fire was roaring in the fireplace, the tree lights were flickering, and Clay was enjoying his first ever family Christmas Eve celebration. If his heart expanded with any more joy, it just might explode.

It was almost midnight, but still the family members were opening their Christmas gifts. Clay sat on the sofa with Annie on his one side, holding his hand. Aunt Liza was on the other side, keeping an eagle eye on his hands, lest they stray.

The gifts they gave to each other were simple items, some homemade, some silly, many downright practical. Who knew that people got socks and underwear for Christmas gifts! Johnny raved over his new athletic shoes
 . . .
the spiffiest in the store, according to Annie. Everyone received new shirts and jeans. The pearl stud earrings that Johnny bought for Annie, probably from Walmart, might have come from Cartier’s, for all her oohing and aahing. And the boys exhibited just as much appreciation over cheap card games or music cassettes.

There were even gifts for Clay from the family, to his surprise and slight embarrassment. When Aunt Liza handed him a small box, wrapped with Santa Claus paper, he almost choked.
She wouldn’t!

Aunt Liza tsked at him till he unwrapped it to find a CD of “Elvis’s Greatest Hits.”

“Whadja think I bought, you fool?” she said with a chuckle.

Chet, Roy and Hank pooled their money to get him a pair of low-heeled cowboy boots. Jerry Lee gave him a Wall Street joke book, and Johnny presented him with a tie imprinted with dozens of Holstein cows.

When it was Annie’s turn, she made much ado over the homemade tree ornament with his name and date stenciled on the back, thus symbolizing his formal acceptance into her family. Finally, with much nervousness, she handed him what he sensed must be a special gift.

Tears filled his eyes, and he couldn’t speak at first. Inside was a leather album. The words on front, embossed with gold letters, said, “The Works of Clare Gannett.” Annie had somehow managed to gather together dozens of photographs made by his mother. On the last page was a copy of an obituary from a Memphis newspaper, detailing her artistic talent and what she had contributed to Memphis and music history in her short life.

“Where did you get these?” he asked when his emotions were finally under control.

“I badgered the museum curator yesterday. When he heard your story, he helped me pull those photos made by your mother and duplicated them at a one-hour photo studio down the street.”

“Thank you, love,” he whispered against her hair. Then, he decided it was time to reciprocate. “Can you guys help me get some gifts from the Jeep?”

Annie’s brothers gasped out a single-word curse when they saw how the back of the Jeep overflowed with gaily wrapped packages, some them in huge boxes.

Aunt Liza could be heard rapping on the kitchen window at that crude expletive. “I heard that, boys. You’re not too old for soap, you know. That goes for you, too, Mr. Jessup.”

After three trips, the living room was filled with his purchases. Hank closed the door with a shiver—it was turning cold outside and snowflakes had just begun to flutter down in wonderful Christmas fashion—and he asked Clay, “Where’d you buy that spiffy red Jeep?”

“Oh, he didn’t buy it,” Annie explained. “It’s a rental.”

“That sure looked like a new car plate to me,” Hank commented as he hung his coat on an old-fashioned coat rack.

“Clay?” Annie tilted her head in question to him. “Did you buy yourself a Jeep?”

“Well, no, I didn’t buy a Jeep for
myself
.”

Everyone turned to stare at him then. Clay shifted uneasily, and his eyes wandered over to Hank.

There was a long telling silence. Then Hank whooped, “Me?
Me?
You bought a car for me?”

“Clay Jessup! You can’t go out and buy a car for someone you barely know for a Christmas present.”

“I can’t?” he asked, honestly perplexed. “Well, hell
 . . .
I mean, heck, Annie, Hank distinctly said that first night I was here for dinner that if he had as much money as me, he would buy a fancy new vehicle and be the biggest chick magnet in the United States. I knew you’d be upset if I bought him a Jaguar.”

“Holy Cow! I wonder what I get if Hank gets a new Jeep,” Johnny commented in an awestruck voice.

Annie made a low gurgling sound, which he figured was his cue to move on to the other gifts.

Chet’s Adam’s apple moved awkwardly as he studied Clay’s gift
 . . .
airline tickets for Chet Fallon and son, Jason, for London, dated December 26.

“At least you show
some
good sense,” Aunt Liza observed. “It’s about time someone pushed Chet in the right direction.”

For the entire family, Clay bought a high-tech computer system that would allow them to program in all the statistics on their milk production. Aunt Liza got a microwave which she pooh-poohed at first, stating “What would I do with one of those fancy contraptions?” But she was soon reading the manual exclaiming, “Didja know you can do preserves in a microwave?” By the time Jerry Lee went ballistic over his laptop, Roy had gone speechless over the bank envelope showing a trust fund passbook covering his entire vet school tuition, and Johnny was in tears over a new entertainment system for his bedroom, complete with portable TV, CD player and game system
 . . .
well, by then Annie had given up on her protests.

“It’s too much, Clay,” she said on a sigh of frustration.

“No, it’s not, Annie. Generosity is giving till it hurts
 . . .
like you and your family do every Christmas. This is just money I spent here
 . . .
money whose loss I won’t even miss.”

“But I still think you should take back—”

“Annie,” Aunt Liza cautioned in a stern voice, “shut up.”

They all laughed at that.

“So what did you get for Annie?” Hank wanted to know.